


Hell Sleeper (Spoilers!)

by CharbroilLaFlamme



Category: Doom (Video Games)
Genre: Demons, Gen, Male Protagonist, Mars, Mild Language, POV Third Person, Religious References, Science, Spoilers, cyborg protagonist, villain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 04:19:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15259314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharbroilLaFlamme/pseuds/CharbroilLaFlamme
Summary: Samuel Hayden has a one-sided conversation with a coffin.





	Hell Sleeper (Spoilers!)

In the scripture, the prophetic scrolls that lie in Hell’s own library of Alexandria, written in hooked runes and jagged chicken-scratch, and drawings—hieroglyphs—it said such things that man had heard before.

_Damnation, doom, destruction..._

But one thing was consistent, a symbol scraped out in what looked like rusty old blood or some form of rough red ink—possibly made of oxidised soil.

 _Bibles_ , Hayden concluded, _they were Bibles._

Written by the people of the Argent plane. Scholars and scriveners, historians and archaeologists, clergy.

 _Religion_.

The stone tomb was unearthed. And the body within showed signs of life. A faint heartbeat within. Fast. Constant. In permenant bloodlust.

By all means a miracle. Providence.

Not that Hayden believed that sort of nonsense.

The scrolls were found scattered along the crumbled remains of a temple, and toppled statues depicting crudely chiseled bodies—eroded beyond repair—of what Hayden could only see as great figures in Argent lore.

_Gods, perhaps?_

And he knew better than to buy into the good Doctor Pierce’s mutterings and ramblings of a madwoman. The manic chattering to herself as she paced the room with the stone coffin.

It must have been jealousy, driving her into the ground. It was true, her little group’s discoveries were now Hayden’s sole property.

And Hayden lamented, for she was becoming a liability. Her genius overshadowed by her burgeoning lunacy.

He pored over the vibrant blue holographic scans of the yellowed scrolls for days, but nothing showed itself, no realisation, no revelation, no flash of inspiration.

Just a pondering, contemplative meditation.

The spectres of the statues in the corner of his office overlooking the red martian plains.

The sandstorms beating the glass while the stone “knights” kept stalwart vigil. Like suits of armour in the halls of his castle.

There were drawn figures among the crumbling parchment, that very red symbol scraped along the surface with rough-bristle paint brushes.

A symbol feared.

A symbol chiseled on the very sarcophagus within which that mysterious heartbeat resonated.

Rough translations of the retrieved tablets spoke of tales as old as time, a Crucible, and a Doom Slayer.

An extensive and open dialogue unto the Argent plane’s history and beliefs.

A place called _Argent D’Nur_. And warnings against approaching the temple under which the Doom Slayer’s rampage was abruptly ended.

But still, Hayden returned his attention to the Crucible. A source of energy, something to quench humanity’s thirst for power. Its drought.

Something more than that.

_Something to feed him._

He recalled the fragment of tablet housed at the far end of his room.

Within it, scraped into its surface, a sword-like artefact with two hooked edges on either side. The hilt was drawn out in vivid detail, the pommel was shown as the upper half of a skull, with slit eyes and two long jutting portions that looked like horns.

The tablet itself made of a noticeably redder stone than usual and the indentations glowed with a slightly pulsing pale orange light...

 

* * *

 

Hayden found himself approaching the mystery coffin of his own accord. Wondering what it was that it would take to see inside.

Scans revealed a human form, organic, flesh and bone, scar tissue, and a long, storied past of injury.

“What does Olivia see in you, Doom-Slayer?” He intoned, and felt well like a damned fool as he paced its length, talking to the stone surface. “Where do you come from? And what are you?”

He rapped the surface with a titanium alloy knuckle, a ripple of red spread over the coffin from the impact point to the base.

“Well-protected, aren’t you? No matter.” Hayden said, voice dripping with a miasma of frustration. “We have _ways_ of cracking you open.”

The smell of Argent energy exuded like smoke from the coffin, reminding him that he needed it. And just how badly.

He knew something more, the suit housed in the next room, just directly opposite. It was a heavy-armour suit, despite all testing, it remained undamaged, not a single new scratch on its scuffed surface resulted. _Impervious_ , they’d said. The suit itself more of a conduit, an outlet of a sort.

Hayden didn’t take long to put two and two together: the Slayer needed the Suit—and vice versa. The plug for the socket. And any number of metaphors that cropped up.

The man within the coffin must have been something, indeed.

Something to have been considered such a threat by the Argent plane that he had to be contained. As well as separated from his armour.

Hayden didn’t quite believe in prophecies, but even he had a hard time believing it was coincidence that they had stumbled upon this “Doom-Slayer”, in this day in age, this dearth of energy. Extinction looming like the heat death so many had predicted.

Scriptures and what he could only see as entries in a journal for the future said that the Doom Slayer would rise again to _destroy_ Hell.

Hayden was a man of business, and perhaps if this Slayer did indeed come to, in their time of need, he could have a deal struck up within seconds.

Though the two would have very different ways of handling business, and fulfilling bargains—he only hoped that this... _thing_ , was cognisant enough to even hear him out.

And something prickling at the back of Hayden’s enhanced mind said things would not go so swimmingly.

Considering that this man from beyond was possibly a barbarian with malicious intent—Hayden would have to keep him occupied somehow if so. Keep this beast in the shape of a man occupied with things to kill. _Anything_.

“I’m not certain if you can hear me, Slayer, but perhaps we could learn more about each other,” the coffin sparked in reply, as if it didn’t like Hayden being so close to it. “Help me help you.” He added. “Well, not that you have much of a choice. Since I’ll be the only thing even close to a friend that you would have in this place.”

 _Like talking to an unborn child_ , Hayden was unsure of what this man would even be like once he rose from his crypt like Lazarus.

One more thing bugged Hayden, had this stasis in some way stopped his ageing process?

Was everything as it was eons ago? Were his muscles intact, was his face unblemished? Were bleeding wounds still bleeding?

All questions that Hayden was certain would be answered, in due time. However, he was loathe to admit that some form of _magic_ was behind this.

The longer he existed, the more he was starting to lose himself in his work and his own personal brand of mania. Like Olivia.


End file.
